representations of quadrupeds, tortoises, lizards, snakes, fights, hunts, and the different heavenly bodies.
As the game became gradually destroyed by the European colonists, the Bushmen began to make raids upon the white men’s cattle, the result of which was to pave the way for their own annihilation. The true Bushman, as distinguished from the many half-breeds, has a passionate love for his rocky home, and whether he enters service by a voluntary contract or under compulsion, he will take the first opportunity of stealing a sheep and making off to his beloved hills. Instances of periods of stipulated service being faithfully fulfilled are very rare.
But as I have already intimated, these people are not altogether of the low grade of humanity that at first sight they appear to be, and a traveller may penetrate far into Central Africa before finding another tribe so skilful in its manipulation of stone, and in the manufacture of vessels out of wood, bone, or ostriches’ eggs; but most remarkable of all is the way in which, by the aid of the rudest tools, they have adorned their primitive homes with carvings that will long survive any productions of their contemporaries, the Bantus and Hottentots.
The drawings that are made inside the caves are chiefly upon sandstone in ochre of various colours. Stow, the geologist, has devoted a good deal of attention to them, and has taken many copies of the designs; and if ever it be my good fortune to recommence my South African researches, I hope to bring away some larger specimens than my want of proper tools enabled me now to obtain.
